S1867 - An Absurd Addendum

Dec 1st, 2011

The NY Times reports:
"After a passionate debate over a detainee-related provision in a major defense bill, the lawmakers decided not to make clearer the current law about the rights of Americans suspected of being terrorists. Instead, they voted 99 to 1 to say the bill does not affect “existing law” about people arrested inside the United States.

“We make clear that whatever the law is, it is unaffected by this language in our bill,” said Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who helped shape the detainee-related sections of the bill with Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee."

Now, let me state, for the record, that this should fool no one. Unfortunately, it already seems to have done just that. Andrew Sullivan writes, "The law remains, mercifully, as it was."

Excuse me, but that's not exactly accurate. The law is, for the time being, as it was for the simple reason that this bill hasn't been signed into law. Let's be very clear here; this only muddies the water further. The Senate essentially passed a resolution stipulating that S1867 doesn't, in fact, say what it quite clearly says.

This is bullshit. That Sullivan would suggest breathing easier is nuts.

GOP Debate Reactions

Sept 7th, 2011

"My take-away? Perry has proved himself an extreme, inarticulate, incurious W clone. He doubled down on the vicious attacks on social security; and his rhetoric was off-key. Huntsman emerged as an actual candidate; Romney kicked ass. Bachmann is wearing thinner and thinner. Paul is Paul. Santorum is a Vatican crank. Gingrich is an angry old man. Cain has no business being up there. Perry's poor performance gives Palin an opening. And an actual argument that people can understand about economic policy did not emerge."
-- Andrew Sullivan

The Real News Is That It's News

Aug 31st, 2011

I like Jon Huntsman and have said so for months. No, I am not a supporter. Yes, I have every intention of backing the current President for reelection. That's not the point. Huntsman has generally struck me as smart and principled. After he received a grand total of 69 votes in the recent GOP Iowa Straw Poll, I expected his campaign to wind down and likely be over in a matter of weeks. Then something happened.

Following a particularly pandering pronouncement from Gov. Rick Perry, Huntsman tweeted this:

"To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy."

Huntsman has suddenly recaptured everyone's attention. It is now news when a GOP politician running for the Presidency declares that he believes in science.

Quote Of The Day - Here and Now Edition 2

Aug 18th, 2011

"...the GOP is now a church with doctrines, not a party with policies"
-- Andrew Sullivan describing his reaction to the increasingly infamous and unanimous rejection of a "10 to 1" cuts vs taxes plan to eliminate the debt.

About That "Super Committee"

August 2nd, 2011

Jonathan Chait sees a potential silver lining for Democratic priorities:

"I actually think the design of this plan is fascinating. You take a couple of the most powerful forces preventing major policy change -- partisan gridlock and special interest influence -- and turn them into forces for change by rejiggering the default setting."

It's Still Torture

May 6th, 2011

Yesterday, I reposted an old column as a little push back against the outright liars and revisionists from the Bush era who are hyping the "torture got Osama" meme. It's totally unsurprising that FOX is parroting their talking points and repeating their falsehoods.



Andrew Sullivan kept up the pressure as he has been for some time with an analysis of why it's so important to the torturers to defend themselves now:

"So let us be very clear. The war criminal Dick Cheney presided over the worst lapse in national security since Pearl Harbor, resulting in the deaths of more than 3,000 people. This rank incompetent failed to get bin Laden at Tora Bora, and then dragged the US on false pretenses into a war in Iraq, empowering Iran's dictatorship, and killing another 5,000 more Americans on a wild goose chase. He presided over the deaths of more than 8,000 Americans, and tens of thousands of Iraqis during his criminally incompetent years in office.

On the other hand, the man who abolished torture as soon as he took office, Barack Obama, captured and killed Osama bin Laden, and captured a massive trove of intelligence, more than two years later. No Americans died in the operation.

What on earth are we debating? How have these delusional maniacs managed to even get us onto this turf? Because they have to. Because when the full truth of these past years are fully in focus, they will be revealed as some of the greatest criminals ever to have wielded power in America."

Quote Of The Day - Reaganomic Endgame Edition

March 30th, 2011

"Conservatism cannot be defined as whatever is the most extreme right-wing narrative of the moment. Time matters. Conservatism needs to be flexible enough a governing philosophy to be able to correct for conservative ideology itself. When such an ideology threatens fiscal balance, a prudent foreign policy, and a thriving middle class, it has become the enemy of real conservatism, not its friend." -- Andrew Sullivan

Sullivan On Kristol's Latest

Mar 14th, 2011

I argued earlier that Bill Kristol's call to arms regarding Libya was, to put it politely, poorly thought out.

Sullivan goes further:

"Kristol, recall, was one of the architects of the two worst military clusterfucks since Vietnam - a decade long nation-building effort in Afghanistan (why not the Congo?) and an invasion of Iraq on false pretenses, leading to the deaths of over a hundred thousand people while the country was under direct US supervision. It is, I understand, too much to ask of such war-mongerers whether they have any sense of shame left - that tends to be surgically removed during Fox News contract negotiations. But is it too much to ask that they acknowledge that the last two wars they argued for with such moral preening led to a human catastrophe, with no long-term security gains for the US, and vast amounts of debt? Is a total lack of reflection or responsibility now mandatory with these people?"

We love Sullly.

 

Sully's New Rules

March 1st, 2011

Andrew Sullivan writes:
"If your name is Koch, it's pronounced cock. And if your name is Boehner, it's pronounced boner. They can always change their names if they want. Until then ... I'm calling it like it is."

Reading Around

Jan 14th, 2011

It seems clear that Jared Loughner is profoundly mentally ill. 

However, to suggest that because his worldview is warped a discussion about it's influence upon him is not germane is ridiculous. 

In a column that I can only describe as exposing an outlook of detachment bordering on delusion, the NY Times' David Brooks expresses incredible shock that we have engaged in any discussion of the shooter's possible politics:

"Other themes from Loughner’s life fit the rampage-killer profile. He saw himself in world historical terms. He appeared to have a poor sense of his own illness (part of a condition known as anosognosia). He had increasingly frequent run-ins with the police. In short, the evidence before us suggests that Loughner was locked in a world far removed from politics as we normally understand it."

Andrew Sullivan's responses are spot-on:

"...why, one has to ask, does this person with mental illness, carefully select for assassination an already targeted and demonized congresswoman, rather than, say, a supermarket, or a workplace, or a school? We don't know precisely yet - but it sure is relevant to ask that question. Why not shoot up the animal shelter he was fired from? Or the classroom he was banished from? In fact, it is a kind of bizarre suppression to avoid the obviously political fact of the target Loughner selected."

Indeed. There are 541 members of the senate and the house (including the house's 6 non-voting members). What were the odds that one of the 20 members targeted with gun-sights on the infamous Palin poster would be nearly killed in an act of gun violence by mere coincidence? 

"I find this notion that in real time we should not even be discussing or airing or debating the political and rhetorical climate that preceded this to be a dangerous piety. Airing the question of how public culture affects the disturbed mind is not just legitimate in this case, but vital, in ways that Brooks of all people should understand. David is a very shrewd analyst of culture, of why it matters, of how we are all connected - and yet, suddenly, this one young man exists in a total vacuum, where politics and culture do not exist.

Such a place does not exist - however much some would now like it to."

Sully On Romney

Dec 20^th, 2010

Andrew Sullivan takes on Mitt Romney:

“Responding to public opinion is one thing, but Romney constantly does 180s to follow miniscule political advantages. He's the reverse of Obama –Mitt takes the long-term political hit for the short-term gain; he campaigns as if political opportunity costs don't exist. Yglesias is correct that basic beliefs and temperament matter. And John Gardner is right to point out that public opinion has its limits.”